Word: moons
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Their Orbit. Hagerty added that this first U.S. satellite would be a project for peace, not for war. It would be a U.S. contribution to the International Geophysical Year (1957-58), and its explorer's view of sun, moon, planets, stars and space, transmitted down to mankind by telemeters, would be available to all scientists, including the Russians...
...want to crawl in space before you fly." But fantasy flashed irrepressibly through their sober scientific pronouncements: "It should be barely possible to see it at twilight with the naked eye . . . certainly with a good pair of binoculars ... It will be illuminated by the sun, just like the moon . . . very much like a little moon...
...cruising spaceships of science fiction are beyond present-day capabilities. Theoretically they are possible, but many layers of problems must be cleared away before they can set their courses for the moon or Mars. The most difficult problems are human: how to keep the crews alive in space and how to get them back to earth in reasonably good condition. Both problems are bypassed by making man's first step toward space a satellite that carries no crew and is not expected to return to earth...
From here on, Porter implies, the engineers have little cause for optimism. With the moon, earth and spaceship all moving at high speed in their respective orbits, there could be no arrow-straight courses. The spaceship would have to be directed and launched so that its orbit coincided exactly with the moon's passing; an error in initial speed of a thousandth of a mile per second (5 ft.) might mean missing the moon altogether. For the moon's gravitational pull to take effect, the spaceship must first exactly match the moon's 2,278-m.p.h. speed...
Zigzag in Space. While a trip to the moon is a "possibility" in the near future because the rocket can be radio-controlled from earth, a voyage to Mars. 1,600 times as far away, would be another matter. The time lag in sending and receiving radio signals would make advice from home out of date; yet navigation would have to be even more exacting and constant than during a trip to the moon. There is no known way that its crew can determine the direction and actual speed of a rocketship traveling in space. Speed cannot be changed without...